


Hang Man

by resurrectedhippo



Category: Marvel 616
Genre: Angst, Captivity, Dark, Hydra Steve Rogers, M/M, Secret Empire (Marvel), Torture, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-14
Updated: 2021-02-14
Packaged: 2021-03-14 14:06:44
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,126
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29419842
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/resurrectedhippo/pseuds/resurrectedhippo
Summary: Tony had shut those thoughts away in a corner of his brain, labeled it as an error. Steve would never look back, and there’s never been time for dreaming when the world suffered crisis after crisis. Not when Tony was running, rebuilding himself, planning to destroy planets, wiping Steve’s memories. This must be the punishment Steve never allowed himself to give.
Relationships: Steve Rogers/Tony Stark
Comments: 8
Kudos: 51
Collections: Secret Empire, You Gave Me A Stocking 2020





	Hang Man

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Kiyaar](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kiyaar/gifts).



> Written for the 616 stevetony discord server's fandom stocking. Kiyaar, I hope you enjoy this. Happy days to you! 
> 
> Please read the tags before proceeding.

The pain under his eyes is manageable. It grows steady as the hours pass. He is used to hunger now. But it's been over a week since he last had a meal.

He's waiting for his tissue energy to deplete. For organs to dysfunction. For glycogen to eat itself up, for his muscles to weaken and break. He doesn't need them anymore. 

There's no escaping a rotting cell when the rest of the world is prison. 

They have his file. They have everything on him. Medical records will show his history. Chronic medical conditions. Heart issues. Health evaluations that note mental disorders. Impairments in decision making abilities. Experimentations to his body. 

Tony wonders how he got here, to this moment where Steve wears a fond expression but the heaviness of his hands around Tony’s neck means something else. 

The evidence is all over the surface of his body, reconstituted cell by cell so that there's no longer a history of his original form.

Steve, the other one, the real one, hated it all. The Steve in front of him despises it, too, to an extent, but he can play with and test Tony’s limitations. Carve at his heart until there’s nothing left.

He wants to stand. He wants to stop lying, broken on the floor. He wants the smell of ammonia to stop filling his lungs with each inhale. 

The ground is where they kick him until he can't even wrap his arms around his belly to protect his spleen. 

He knows Steve is here by the smell of tar and sweat. He recognizes the tang of iron as blood. Again and again, Tony wonders who Steve killed this time. If it’s one of their friends. 

Tony closes his heavy eyes, praying for sleep to consume him. 

His limbs ache from disuse. He’s always horizontal these days. Thighs spread wide. Just a hole to fill. 

The pain on his hips fester to his lower back, and he sobs as he turns over the thin mattress, biting his lips to stop from screaming. 

The bruises will fade tomorrow, but the cuts on his thighs will remain for days until they scab over. 

He lies on the floor, waiting to be used.

*

Steve lifts him up with ease. He doesn't even have enough energy to walk, much less fight off the hands that wrap around his waist. Tony is arranged on Steve's lap like a child's putrid rag-doll.

Steve maneuvers Tony to lay his head over his shoulder.

Tony shakes with how warm Steve is and hates the way his body chases the remnants of false comfort.

His cell is as cold as an ice box and the blanket he wraps around himself doesn’t ease his shivers. He follows the warmth for a brief moment, only to remember that he’ll be burned soon enough. 

“You’re going to eat the paste or I’ll hold you down and have medical put a feeding tube in you."

Steve tilts his face, hand hard under his jaw, no doubt adding a spot in Tony’s line of mottled bruises. Steve must enjoy making them appear all over Tony’s skin. “Alcohol would make you hungrier,” Steve says, his tone almost sing-song. “You don’t want that, right? I know how much your sobriety means to you.”

Tony understands the way brains are affected by ethanol. Neurons demand nutrition from the brain. He’s just a body now. Six feet and one inch, he can’t even stand up with the damage to his knees, so used to being on all fours with his ass up.

He’s reduced to a series of organs that function to sustain a life half-lived, a life that doesn’t matter to anyone but Steve. Just command signs to his brain. 

Around and around it goes, a sequence of cells working in tandem to tell him he’s a dying soul.

Tony would rather die now, but he can’t even make that decision. 

Sobriety might be the only thing he has left.

That’s under threat too. 

Steve’s fingers press onto his cheeks until Tony doesn’t have the energy to hold his jaw shut. 

His mouth opens and Steve shoves two thick fingers inside. 

The paste tastes of peanuts and something heavier, chalkier, like milk or powdered whey mixed in.

“You think refusing to eat will do you any good? Tony, you’ll just hurt yourself.” He caresses Tony’s face like some cosmic joke. 

Here’s what Tony’s always wanted. Maybe if he closes his eyes he can pretend that the man in front of him isn’t Steve. 

Doesn’t wear Steve’s face. Doesn’t have the same set of blue eyes. Just a faceless creature, a blurry nobody who takes pleasure in brutality. 

Tony swallows, around Steve’s fingers, and bites them as they withdraw. “Isn’t that what you wanted?” 

Steve doesn’t even flinch. He gives a guileless smile, and Tony is reminded that at one point, he chased the upward quirk of those lips. 

Even now, he can’t look away. He’s still breathless when those blue eyes land on him. 

He reminds himself that this isn’t Steve. Not the Steve he’s known half his adult life. Not even the Steve who straddled his prone body and punched his face bloody while the rest of the world burned.

Steve would never touch him like this one does. 

“I wouldn’t be having fun if you’re the one hurting yourself, though.” He gives a quiet, entertained laugh, and pats Tony’s face, smearing spit and dried paste onto his awaiting mouth. “I promise to take care of you.” 

Steve drops his fingers in the cup, then tilts Tony’s jaw back up, pries his mouth open again, and swirls his fingers onto Tony’s tongue like he’d do if it was his cock. Steve coats his lips with the paste and breathes heavily. Tony doesn’t have to look down to see the erection Steve is sporting. “Now, swallow.”

He looks pleased, like this is play for something else. 

Tony forces the paste down his throat and manages to repeat the act until the cup is empty of paste. 

Steve reaches for the glass of water, points the paper straw between Tony’s lips. “Suck, go on.”

He drinks, sips water, finally realizing how long it’s been since he’s had fresh water. Steve pulls away the glass and sets it back down. 

There’s a crease on his face, and once, Tony would have read it as concern, but now, he can’t assess this Steve with the same certainty. 

“Good.” Steve nods with a smile, petting his hair, pleased with something as banal and human as eating. “You’ll get better.”

Tony has no doubt that Steve will make sure of it, but how can you force a sad person to be happy? It doesn’t come easy, especially to those victims of love. What a stupid, trite thing, and yet. 

He lets himself look at Steve now, takes in those bright eyes, not tarnished by rage or fear. He’s satisfied. He’s winning.

There was a time when he thought Steve looked back at him and Tony saw interest and awe written all over his face. 

Tony had shut those thoughts away in a corner of his brain, labeled it as an error. Steve would never look back, and there’s never been time for dreaming when the world suffered crisis after crisis. Not when Tony was running, rebuilding himself, planning to destroy planets, wiping Steve’s memories. This must be the punishment Steve never allowed himself to give. 

All it is now is a quiet surprise that fizzles into thin air. Tony couldn’t catch it and hold it between his palms if he tried. Steve is always turning away, and Tony’s always left watching his figure get smaller and smaller as the distance between them expands, so much so that there’s an ocean of problems between them.

Until now. Until they’ve come to this space where problems are swept as secondary to punishment. 

Tony is forced and pried, made into a bed of rotten fruit. Once sweet, once innocent, a barely there, ripe thing that remains of their friendship is now black and green with mold.

Bile rises from his throat, a sour taste in the back of his teeth.

Steve pushes him down onto the mattress and pulls the covers over him, like a demented version of domesticity Tony once fantasied. He sits on the side of the bed, pushes Tony’s hair back, a look of satisfaction on his face. “Be good while I’m away.” 

The movement is gentle, an abject reminder that Steve could break his skull if he chooses to. 

He cannot help it, he has to ask, “Are you —“ Tony can’t call him Steve. “Is he —“

He cuts off the wonders. Is he what?

_Is he still there? Are you still there, Steve?_

Steve hums, waits, the expression on his face lighting up in dark amusement. He traces the bruises on Tony’s face. 

*

He doesn’t ask where the rest of the team are, who is still alive. 

The last time he asked, one of the wards smirked, nudged another officer, and they all laughed at Tony, eyes dark in victory. “Rotting in hell with the rest of Vegas.”

He doesn’t know what was happening outside these four walls. There’s no electrical wirings in his cell, no blankets in case he tries to hang himself again. Warmth is a privilege reserved for men with dignity. 

It isn’t until they’re moving him to another room, “clean sheets,” Steve had promised the night before when Tony finally orgasmed, that he sees the photographs lining the hallway. 

Steve tells him he is catatonic, nearly unmanageable in his mania. How he tried to rip his shackles with useless fingers that wouldn’t stop shaking. How he spat on the officers, cursed the scum they are, and broke his nose trying to push off another guard. How Tony dropped to his knees and sobs, slobber and snot falling off his mouth and nose. 

Tony can’t comprehend him. He hears the yelling of the guards. The pressure of Steve’s hand on his weak biceps. But he can’t fully register what’s happening. It’s like he’s falling out of the helicarrier without the armor. 

He stands there, still as a corpse, reminded of how fragile he hangs with Steve’s short thread of mercy. 

All Tony feels is heat blooming from his cheeks to his nape, quickly followed by a sharp cold that makes its way to his belly and toes. 

He claws at his arms. Half-moon crescents etched into the creases of his elbows. 

The first photo is of Tigra’s mutilated body. Her torso is cut in half. Her intestines spill out, a dark shade of red pools out to coat the debris on the concrete. Her tail has been roughly cut off, tied to her neck like a bow-tie, its end stuff into her gaping mouth. 

The picture is framed in gold, a humiliating attempt to make murder appear beautiful. The next photograph is Natasha Romanoff with Steve’s new shield stabbing her neck, mouth and eyes still open in shock. 

There are more frames down the hall, but Tony cannot look past the macabre way Tigra’s photograph is shot up close, as if the detail of her death is enjoyable. 

“Didn’t know Tigra would affect you so much.” Tony doesn’t know how long he sits on the floor, staring, wondering how many more. 

How many more? How many? How? 

Steve looms over him, nudging Tony’s ribs with his boots. He has his arms crossed and a frown on his face. 

“She was your friend. An Avenger — she was,” Tony cries, unable to finish the words, failing to explain how Tigra found out about his identity the same day Cap did, how Tigra apologized for being terrified and letting them all down and how Steve applauded her strategy, and her confusion at finding Tony and Thor —

_Is it okay for me to know? Really?_

_Why not? Somehow secrets seem pretty trivial, what with the world on the verge of being the Molecule Man’s Breakfast!_

Steve hums a quiet tune, like they’re back in the Mansion on 890th and he’s showing Tony his sketches. 

For a moment, Tony thinks he’ll be allowed to lie there, that they’ll let him melt onto the floor until there’s nothing left. He hoped that the guards would shoot him down and put his photo on the wall. But Steve kneels down, waves the officers off, and they’re alone.

He pries Tony’s hands from his arms, and it’s only when Steve holds it up and forces Tony to focus his gaze on him that he realizes that they’re bloody. He rubs Tony’s back, whispers, “It’s alright, Shellhead, it’s alright.” 

Tony sobs harder. He hits Steve’s chest, and it’s useless because he’s so weak these days. Not enough food to make him strong. It sustains him just enough so he can’t resist Steve when he enters him. 

Steve murmurs platitudes that are densely veiled threatens, and it’s a study on living in the edges of depravity and false gentleness. He settles a hand under Tony’s knees and carries him to a new room.

It’s bare of anything but a bed, a small ensuite bathroom without a door and a television set that’s already on, but muted, playing the news. 

It’s still a cell even if there’s no bedpan to piss on.

He is set onto the mattress. The sheets are soft. There’s a blanket this time. A pillow too. 

“I had this made just for you,” Steve says, and points at the door on the far wall. “I’m just right there if you need me.”

Stop, Tony doesn’t say, because he knows it’s futile. 

The room is warm, but he isn’t a fool because this Steve can’t give him anything without demanding something in return. 

Tony doesn’t bother wiping his eyes. He curls into a ball, arms going to hug his knees.

Steve sighs, makes a move to touch him. Explain maybe, and there are words coming out of his mouth. Tony cannot hear him. He cannot see this man wearing Steve’s face and looking at him like he’s hurt, as if Tony is at fault for not commending his actions.

He calls Tony over and over again. Tony shuts his eyes, filters the words out, and retreats to the space in his body that Steve cannot touch. 

His mind returns to the photographs in the hall, looping back to Tigra kissing Jarvis and saying goodbye, to her dismembered body, hanging like a mantle. 

Steve leaves, and doors open and shut and open and click shut again. He returns with a tablet and a small, hand mirror. He places the latter on the pillows and makes Tony face his reflection. 

“Look at yourself.”

There’s a crust of dried blood on his cracked lips. He doesn’t know how he’s supposed to react, whether Steve shows him this for pity or punishment. But tears pave down his cheekbones, stinging the cuts on his face. He has a full head of hair now. His beard is grown, thick hairs untamed, sticky with spit. 

But air leaves his lungs and it’s hard to breathe with Steve lingering behind him, a shadow that follows his every move. 

He places a hand behind Tony’s back, rubs circles, whispers about how he wants Tony better, wants Tony to please stop crying because he’s damned tired of hearing the sobs and the screams. 

“Fine, you won’t stop crying. I’ll give you a reason,” Steve huffs. 

But all Tony sees is white when the room shifts and the files from the tablet are projected onto the wall. 

Mockingbird and Hawkeye’s bodies hang slack on the ropes.

Clint looks like he's in pain, as if the noose wasn’t tied properly. Maybe Steve wanted it to hurt, wanted to prolong Clint’s life as penance. 

Bobbi’s face is pale, ashen, and her lips are bloody as is Clint’s face, as if they both suffered an awful beating before the execution. 

And it’s then, when he glances back at Clint’s lifeless body does he see it. 

No hands. Clint’s arms were cut above the elbows, and his bow placed right under his feet. 

“I would have blinded him, but he’s Hawkeye for a reason, so I settled on taking his arms,” Steve explains, voice unaffected, like seeing their friends’ cruel death is normal. “I started with a finger as a warning, but you know him, he doesn’t listen.”

He wonders if Steve observed their last breath, if Clint or Bobbi spat on him, tried to reason, or were they so absolute in fury that they stayed silent. If Clint screamed when his arms were taken. If they forced him to watch Bobbi die.

“They were your friends,” Tony gasps the words out, and it hurts to talk when his voice has been unused for days. When his mouth is nothing but a hole to fuck. He refuses to look at Steve, stops himself from looking away. “How could you? They were your friends! They were your team! Family, how could —“

“They wouldn’t stop pestering us. Though, I do appreciate their dedication to the cause. That’s enlightening to see. Makes their defeat much more satisfying.” 

“They were your friends!” Tony screams. “Your team, your people. They looked up to you.” 

Steve pushes Tony’s hair back, and he wonders if it’s better to be in the gallows with the rest of them.

“Rick Jones was my friend, too. I did what I had to do to make a better world. If friendship is the cost of that, I’m willing to pay that price.”

“Didn’t you want to beat the shit out of me when I tried to pay a price? Now, it seems like morality is a moving target for you.”

“I really am trying to make a better world, Tony.”

“Did you wake me up just for this?” He juts out his jaw, wishing Steve would hit him until he’s dead. 

“Would you believe me if I said it’s because I want you?” Steve murmurs, touches Tony’s nape and plays with the short, fine hair there. Tony stays very still and holds his breath. “I’m him. It’s really me. Everything he felt, thought, it was always about you. We’re still the same in that regard. But unlike him, I’ll take what I want.” 

Steve turns him and hooks a finger under his jaw. He wipes Tony’s tears away. “Don’t you want me like this? He always noticed, you know, the way you looked at him, how your heart accelerated when he got near. The crinkle of your eyes, he catalogued it, stored it in his head, turned it over and over in a loop when sleep wouldn’t come. He loved you. And I? I get to enjoy you.”

**Author's Note:**

> I ran out of time to write the sex scenes. Please imagine Hydra Cap torturing/loving Tony. Thank you for reading! Let me know what you think, please. Kudos and comments mean the world. It encourages me to write!


End file.
